The present invention concerns a vehicle of the industrial truck type for handing loads according to the description herein;
The expression “vehicle of the industrial truck type” is intended to include vehicles that are suitable at least for carrying out the tasks normally carried out by a conventional industrial truck, i.e. handling loads mainly within industrial sites and warehouses as well as loading yards. A difference will be made between the handling and the transporting of loads, and vehicles that at are at least relatively often used to transport loads between locations located at a distance of a few kilometres or more apart, should not be considered to be of the industrial truck type. Different types of working machine, such as front loaders, digging machines or such, should riot be considered as being of this type either. They are not suitable for handling loads at industrial sites or warehouse sites.
It is however pointed out that the expression “vehicle of the industrial truck type” includes vehicles that can have a totally different appearance to conventional industrial trucks as long as they are suitable for the normal tasks that such a vehicle has to carry out.
The conditions under which such vehicles have to work have one thing in common; that the space in which they have at their disposal to move about in is limited since a maximal utilisation of the space at industrial sites and warehouses as well as loading yards is strived for, for cost saving reasons. It is also important that such a vehicle allows manoeuvring in an effective way, so that time and thereby costs can be saved.
A disadvantage with known vehicles of this type is that they do not provide for the desired maximum utilisation of said space and the possibility of effective manoeuvring to save time and costs to a sufficiently high degree. They are relatively clumsy in nature and sometimes have to move according to unfavourable movement patterns in order to transport themselves from one orientation and functional position at one place to a different place having another orientation and/or functional position. These unfavourable movement patterns can mean that the vehicle's sweep areas, i.e. the areas that the vehicle “shadows” during its movement, become unnecessarily large or that these sweep areas have a non-advantageous appearance, considering the “landscape” in which the vehicle will move.
Another reason for time losses is that the lifting unit's load-carrying elements of known vehicles of this type have a limited reach, so that the vehicle can be forced to take long detours or utilise the help of other tools, such as lifting wagons, to transport a load to a certain desired location, such as a long way into a truck bed, or to collect a load from such a location.
Known vehicles of this type even greatly worsen the driver's visibility in certain working situations in the direction the driver would most of all like to have good visibility, which can result in the driver having to drive the vehicle in an ineffective way, for example having to take a detour, or having to drive the vehicle as if his visibility were good with the risk of damaging the surroundings and/or the load.